Today, many user equipment (e.g., mobile phones, cellular communications-capable tablets) are marketed as “pay-as-you-go” devices and made available for sale at national retailers (e.g., Wal-Mart, Target, etc.). Typically, a user can buy a user equipment (UE) marketed this way at these national retailers, and an assistant at the store can assist with activating the SIM card that is to be inserted into the UEs. In contract to the user receiving a monthly bill and subscriber agreement, with a pay-as-you-go plan, a user would typically buy a “go card” credited with a pre-set quantity (e.g., $20, $25, $30, $40, etc.) that can be applied to the user's account and associated with the user's SIM card. Activating the card and loading the account with payment enables the user's UE, with the SIM card inserted, to use the cellular services of a mobile network operator (MNO) entity (e.g., AT&T, Verizon, Sprint-Nextel, Virgin, etc.) associated with the pay-as-you-go cellular service (e.g., make cellular calls from the phone, etc.). These UEs marketed as pay-as-you-go devices, while fully functional and very capable, are typically on sale for magnitudes less than premium-branded phones, and are heavily subsidized by MNOs. MNOs attempt to re-coup their subsidized costs through the user's purchase of go-cards to continue to use the mobile networks of the MNOs for mobile services.
However, many users are purchasing user equipment as a “grab and go,” wherein the user purchases the phone without activating it in-store. The result is that many of these UEs are heavily subsidized by MNOs, but are never activated on the MNOs' mobile networks (e.g., purchasing and activating a SIM card, inserted into the user equipment), even though buying terms of conditions of the MNO might require several months (e.g., 6 months) of active service on the mobile network operator's network before use of the UE on another mobile network operator's network.
Some of the grab and go users are able to activate the Wi-Fi on the UE and use it as a smaller tablet. In other instances, once connected to a Wi-Fi network, a user can download over-the-top VoIP applications (e.g., Skype, Line, Google Voice, etc.) via the Wi-Fi connection, which allows the user to at least make calls over Wi-Fi. Additionally, gaining Wi-Fi also allows users that are bad actors to download applications that can be used to unlock the UEs (e.g., applications that can access the “unlock” code on a device, which allows the device to be used on another mobile network provider's network). MNOs typically lock their UEs, wherein the UE will only work with SIM cards from that MNO. This is especially the case where service providers sell the UEs at a discount in exchange for the user signing a long-term contract for service, or purchasing go-cards associated with pay-as-you-go service. Once unlocked, the user can sell these devices for substantial amounts of money to users that can choose other mobile network providers different from the one providing the subsidy on the device. As such, even though the original intent was for the user to be subscribed to, and use, the user equipment on the mobile network of the MNO that provided the subsidy, due to these scenarios, MNOs are unable to re-coup the subsidies they paid for the user equipment, and additionally, sale of unlocked user equipment can further undercut the sale and activation of user equipment at the retail level.
The above-described background relating to wireless networks is merely intended to provide a contextual overview of some current issues and is not intended to be exhaustive. Other contextual information may become further apparent upon review of the following detailed description.